Ministers, Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
I would like to thank Your Excellency Rasmus Prehn for inviting me to speak on building resilient health systems by addressing health security.
First, I would like to acknowledge the Government of Denmark and other Nordic countries, who have provided consistent, high-level support both to the global response to COVID-19, and for universal health coverage and health security.
The Nordic countries have been and continue to be good friends of WHO and of global health.
I have a particular fondness for Denmark, which is where I had my first exposure to universal health coverage, and my first health insurance.
I offer my sincere gratitude for the support of all your countries for WHO and for the response to COVID-19.
So far, we have lost more than 800 000 lives to this pandemic. The impacts go far beyond the disease itself, leading to major disruptions to health systems, nutrition, and immunization programs.
These could take a much larger toll than the disease itself.
Economies and societies, lives and livelihoods have been upended. The International Monetary Fund predicts a 4.9% contraction in the global economy this year.
The world has invested heavily in preparing for terrorist attacks, but relatively little preparing for an attack of a virus – which as the pandemic has proven, can be far more deadly, and far more disruptive socially, economically and politically.
It has never been clearer that health is a political and economic choice.
Even as we continue to fight to bring the pandemic under control, we must also be planning for the future.
We now have a window of opportunity to do things differently.
This pandemic is a harsh teacher of an old lesson: universal health coverage and health security go hand in hand. They are the foundation of resilient health systems and societies.
But as we have seen demonstrated in far too many countries, we still have a long way to go.
It is a core principle of public health: ‘individuals cannot be healthy on their own’. Systems matter.
In many countries, the pandemic has highlighted how basic functions underpinning emergency preparedness have been neglected, to disastrous consequence.
Investments focused solely on outbreak response are not enough, without the foundation of a functional, day-to-day health system that has earned the trust of the communities it serves.
COVID-19 has put the spotlight on critical gaps in areas such as surveillance, diagnostics, essential medicines, protective equipment, supply chains, infection prevention and control, water, sanitation and hygiene, and the health workforce.
The absence of any one of these leaves communities vulnerable and undermines the timely response necessary to contain the pandemic, or any health crisis.
This has been true around the world, most profoundly in low- and middle- income countries.
We must not only learn the lessons of this pandemic, we must act on them.
WHO is supporting countries to improve emergency preparedness capacity and strengthen health system resilience and recovery.
Especially vulnerable are those countries facing conflict, displaced populations, natural disasters, or climate change. They require additional assistance not only to respond to the pandemic but also to maintain essential health services.
Let me leave you with three goals that I believe policy-makers should be focusing on as they plan for recovery and long-term resilience:
First, greater investment and national leadership is needed to better integrate health system strengthening and health security.
Second, it is critical to strengthen not only national but also subnational capacities to maintain primary health care, public health services, and outbreak surveillance and response.
Finally, “building back better” means building back greener. The pandemic has given new impetus to the need to respond to climate change.
WHO recently published our “Manifesto for a Healthy and Green Recovery”, with policy prescriptions for protecting nature, investing in water and sanitation, promoting healthy food systems, transitioning to renewable energy, building liveable cities, and stopping subsidies on fossil fuels.
I urge policy-makers to make use of it.
Thank you once again for the opportunity to participate in this roundtable, and I look forward to working with all of you to build the healthier, safer, fairer and greener world we all want.
I thank you.